At a recent series of Circuit Assemblies, the Governing Body put out warnings on what in their view is the latest danger from Satan, designed to break the faith of Jehovah's Witnesses everywhere.
Facebook.
Yes, thats right, apparantly, the GB is concerned because a lot of people are having "Facebook sex". They are meeting old friends who aren't Jehovah's Witnesses and getting it on with whomever would willingly sleep with them. Evidentally, the GB would like their flock to believe that when JW's get on Facebook and other social networking sites, fornication happens.
Now, this IS news. Because most people who are on Facebook, or Twitter, or other social networds, are clearly not having sex, as evidenced by the fact that they are actually typing status updates or playing games like Farmville.
This was used as more "evidence" that really, because the internet is of "the world that is controlled by Satan", JW's are really better off staying away, limiting their own use of the internet. Because too much use could only weaken their faith.
So why would the Governing Body lie about this?
Because the real reason they want their flock to stay away from Facebook, or the internet in general, isn't because an orgy could break out. It is because they don't want their flock exposed to ideas that differ from the GB's. They don't want former JW's to point out the lies and inconsistencies of GB doctrine, thus sowing doubts that are legitimate, that expose the GB for the lies that they tell. They don't want to arouse curiosity in their flocks about what others are saying about JW's.
That's all its about. The internet is basically good enough to get news, weather, sports, and some email. After that, its time for you to keep up with your Watchtower reading and study.
So if you are an average reader, or just curious about why the Governing Body is so concerned about how talking with former Jehovah's Witnesses faith could be permanently damaged by discussing their religion with those who really know and understand it, lets review a few logical questions and answers.
The first, biggest, and best one is, If Jehovah is so strong, and a JW's faith is so great, why is it evidentally so fragile in the face of apostates? Why would the whole house of cards break down if a person were exposed to the real history of how the JW's got 1914 (like C T Russell measuring pyramids in Egypt. Honest!), or the involvment of this group with the UN, whom they call the wild beast of Revelation 17, just to name two. Or maybe three, the intelletual dishonesty involved in including the name "Jehovah" 237 times in the NT/Greek Scriptures. Or how they discourage teens from getting married as that represents a lifelong committment that they aren't ready for, yet at the same time, readily taking teenagers in for the lifelong JW committment of baptism and thinking that great. Sometimes, kids as young as 9 years old are baptized, only to change their minds on reaching the age of majority, and then, they are shunned, all because they got baptized way too young.
How come they can't hold personal study groups studying the bible without the aid of WT literature?
Ok, those are legit. And do you think that these points, and others are even discussed amongst themselves? Sure. And if the elders find out? It could get you disfellowshipped and shunned. And those lurking Jehovah's Witnesses who are reading this know this. Esp if they have been a JW for any length of time.
So talking about this is bad. It can ruin their super strong faith. Evidnetally, Jehovah is powerful enough to help a person say not to life saving blood treatment and the like, but he is powerless against some potential bad publicity by former Jehovah's Witnesses?
Related is, how come Jehovah's Witnesses can present literature and talking points that are specifically designed to raise questions and doubt with a householders current religion, in effect, trying to make them an apostate of their old religion, while at the same time, demonizing anyone as a Satan worshipping apostate who has left and merely engage in the same work Jehovah's Witnessses do door to door? (i.e. pointing out facts, raising doubts about their religion?)
So JW's have fought for the right to make apostates of others all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States, and to have the ability to share negative, sometimes misleading information about the religion's of others, yet they absolutely demand that their flock have nothing to do with others who would expose them in the same manner?
That is the biggest concern that the GB has about the internet, they have no control over those that expose them. The real history for anyone who care to read such books as "Apocalypse Delayed" by James Penton or "Crisis of Conscience" by Raymond Franz, paint a very different picture of the leadership of Jehovah's Witnesses, from their very odd, weird, and ultimately incorrect attempts at prophecy, to their borderline paranoid efforts to squelch dissent in their midst even as they attempt to sow dissent everywhere else.
The internet ruins that for the GB. But for them to say that the real reason they discourage internet use is because they don't want to expose their flock to potential immorality. I say, that is a lie.
MOST PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET TODAY ARE NOT ON THERE FOR SEXUAL REASONS. ESP IS THIS TRUE IN CHAT ROOMS DISCUSSING JEHOVAHS WITNESSES. MOST PEOPLE ARE NOT HAVING FACEBOOK SEX. THESE ARE LIES DESIGNED TO KEEP JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES FROM FINDING READY INFORMATION THAT EXPOSES THE GOVERNING BODY AS HAVING LIED TO THEIR FLOCK OVER AND OVER AGAIN, AND TO KEEP MANY OLDER FALSE PROPHECIES FROM FLOATING TO THE SURFACE THAT COULD ULTIMATELY PROVE THAT THEY ARE INDEED, NOT THE TRUE RELIGION.
What is more important to the Governing Body then the faith of their flock in Jehovah is the control that this faith gives them over the lives of their flock. They will do all they can to keep that control, even if that means engaging in disingenuous innuendo to outright lies.
Lets face the facts. If Jehovah's Witnesses really had "the truth" as taught by the Governing Body, and if their attempts at time prophecies and teachings were true, and if they didn't believe a whole bunch of crazy stuff in their past, and if they didn't consistently change their doctrines because they were out and out not true and wrong......
...they would have nothing to fear about their flock listening to other non Jehovah's Witnesses about their faith.
But the GB has a ton of skeletons in their closet. And the internet, and other books, expose them. And that is why the GB wants all JW's to avoid the internet.